Last sus pray meeting of the year

I was getting a bit lazy to write this down, but since Elsieasked about it, I might as well noting it down before losing it.

Last time the sus group for praying for missions in China met about a month ago in SMBC, where someone from Evergreen came to show us what they have been doing in Shangxi to help out the locals, and bringing the message of gospel to people's lives at the same time. Last Friday night we met at Moore College, and this time another guy from OMF International gave us a presentation on the overview of Christianity in China.

The presentation started with this OMF guy introducing himself (name withdrawn from possibility of pressure from the Chinese government). He has been in China for over 8 years, and currently runs a business to teach English to the locals. We then watched a short video introducing the mission fields in Asia, especially in China and Indonesia. While Christian evangelism faces persecution in both nations, the nature is quite different. One is from the atheist government, and another is from the Islamic government. We were then presented with another slideshow in PowerPoint, mainly on the Christianity in China. We looked at different churches (Three Self vs. House Church), individual cases, and the areas OMF is working on, etc.

After the presentation, people have chance to pray for what we have heard, have supper and chat. I did get some chance to chat with a few people who have their hearts in China. Very encouraging in deed. Especially David who has just graduated from SMBC, who have been working with migrants from China in his local church in Ashfield. As an Anglo with no Chinese language training, his involvement with the local Chinese sparked his interest in going to China as a missionary.

As for myself, I think Christians in Sydney ought to be challenged on our own godliness and how we can utilise our rich spiritual resources. Compare to Christians in China, we are far wealthier. We can run prayer meeting at a theological college on a Friday night - freely, and it is not the kind of privilege which Christians in China can enjoy. We have rich resources, books, multimedia, great teaching, freedom to proclaim, etc. Yet compare to some Christians in China, who arrive at church 1 hour prior starting of service under all weather, spending time in prayer while waiting, and are keen to evangelise not just to the Han, but to minority groups, and aiming to bring the gospel back to Jerusalem, I felt ashamed in my own little comfort zone. Most of them are not trained, but their desire for godliness is astonishing.

Yet I wonder where are those keen Chinese Christians, and why I've never met one studying in UNSW? Looking at the people we are trying to minister, they don't seem to fit with the picture presented. Do they also suffer from the same persecution that swept the Christianity in the western world, the persecution of materialism?

Next time the sus group meet will be February next year. Meanwhile, keep on praying.